- ICC unseals arrest warrant for a prominent Philippine senator over drug war killings under Duterte
Source: Yahoo! News
“The International Criminal Court unsealed Monday an arrest warrant for a prominent Philippine senator linked to the deadly ‘war on drugs’ overseen by ex-President Rodrigo Duterte, which allegedly involved the extrajudicial killings of suspects. The warrant, originally issued confidentially in November, charges Ronald Marapon dela Rosa, a former Philippine national police chief and a Duterte ally, with the crime against humanity of murder of ‘no less than 32 persons’ allegedly committed between July 2016 and the end of April 2018. Duterte, dela Rosa and other police officials have denied authorizing the killings of drug suspects, who, they said, were shot dead after allegedly threatening law enforcers. Duterte openly and repeatedly threatened drug suspects with death while in office.” (05/11/26)
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/icc-unseals-arrest-warrant-former-150533606.html
- Shein accuses Temu of “industrial scale” copyright breaches in UK legal battle
Source: Yahoo! Finance
“Online fast-fashion platform Shein accused Temu of copyright infringement ‘on an industrial scale,’ while Temu countered that Shein is using litigation to stifle competition, as a trial opened at London’s High Court on Monday. The case is part of a global legal battle between the fast-growing rivals, with potential implications for platform practices, supplier relationships and the enforcement of intellectual property rights across global e-commerce. Shein alleges Temu used thousands of its photos to advertise copies of Shein’s own-brand clothing on its website, to ‘piggy-back’ on a more established competitor. … Temu – owned by PDD Holdings – has counter-claimed, seeking damages after it had to remove thousands of product listings when Shein obtained an injunction.” (05/11/26)
https://finance.yahoo.com/markets/stocks/articles/shein-accuses-temu-industrial-scale-121251120.html
- UK: MP backs down from Starmer challenge but urges him to go by September
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“Catherine West, the Labour MP who announced a challenge to Keir Starmer’s leadership, has changed course to say she instead wants the prime minister to set a timetable of September for his departure. West, the MP for Hornsey and Friern Barnet and a former Foreign Office minister, announced on Saturday that she would seek to gather the 81 Labour MPs’ names needed to formally challenge Starmer, saying this was just a device to tempt others to stand and that she did not wish to take over. In a statement released after Starmer’s speech on Monday morning in which he said he would fight on despite terrible results for Labour in elections last week, West called for an orderly process for Starmer to depart.” (05/11/26)
- EU imposes sanctions over helping Russia abduct thousands of Ukrainian children
Source: ABC News
“The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on 16 officials accused of helping Russia to abduct tens of thousands of children from Ukraine and force many to change their identities or be put up for adoption. Sanctions were also slapped on seven centers suspected of indoctrinating the children or training them to serve in the armed forces, either for Russia or pro-Russian militias inside Ukraine. Over 130 people and ‘entities’ are now under EU sanctions over the abductions.” (05/11/26)
- CA: GM agrees to pay $12.75 million in “consumer protection” extortion racket
Source: Engadget
“Following its settlement with the FTC earlier this year over its sale of drivers’ data to brokers, General Motors has now also reached a settlement in California. The company agreed to pay $12.75 million in civil penalties to settle the lawsuit led by Attorney General Rob Bonta on behalf of the people of California, and is banned from selling driving data to consumer reporting agencies for five years. The lawsuits came after a 2024 New York Times report revealed that GM collected consumers’ driving data through its OnStar program and sold this information to data brokers Verisk Analytics and LexisNexis Risk Solutions, which in turn could market the data to auto insurers.” [editor’s note: The article doesn’t mention any restitution to the drivers; it’s just a “nice store ya got here, be a shame if it burned down” payment – TLK] (05/11/26)
- Israel: Two soldiers sentenced to military prison for desecration of Christian statue in Lebanon
Source: Seattle Times
“Israel’s military said Monday that two soldiers will spend weeks in military prison for the desecration of a Christian statue in southern Lebanon. One soldier, who stuck a cigarette in the mouth of a statue of the Virgin Mary, was sentenced to 21 days and a soldier who filmed the incident was sentenced to 14 days, a military spokesperson said. … The incident came days after images of an Israeli soldier wielding an ax against a fallen statue of Jesus on the cross in the southern village of Debel sparked widespread condemnation. Soldiers who participated in hacking down the crucifix also received time in military prison.” (05/11/26)
- Nigeria: Military Denies Reports of Civilian Deaths After Airstrikes in Niger State
Source: US News & World Report
“Nigeria’s Defence Headquarters on Monday denied reports of civilian deaths from airstrikes on suspected bandits in the northern Niger state, saying the strikes were intelligence-led and hit only militant targets. Defence spokesperson Major-General Michael Onoja said drone strikes carried out overnight between May 9 and 10 targeted the villages of Katerma, Bokko, Kusasu and Kuduru in the Shiroro district after intelligence indicated that armed gangs — known locally as bandits — were gathering to plan attacks. The denial came in response to reports in Nigerian media alleging civilian casualties, underscoring longstanding concerns about the impact on local communities of airstrikes in Nigeria’s conflict zones.” (05/11/26)
- Portrait looted by Nazis found in home of Dutch SS leader’s descendants
Source: BBC News [UK State Media]
“A painting stolen from a Jewish art collector by the Nazis during World War Two has been found in the home of descendants of a notorious Dutch SS collaborator, an art detective has said. Portrait of a Young Girl, by Dutch artist Toon Kelder, is believed to have hung for decades in the home of Hendrik Seyffardt’s family, Arthur Brand said. It had belonged to Jewish art dealer Jacques Goudstikker, who died while fleeing the Nazi invasion of the Netherlands in 1940, leaving behind a collection of more than 1,000 paintings. The case was brought to Brand’s attention by a man who told him he was a descendant of Seyffardt and that he was ‘disgusted’ to learn his family had kept the artwork for years. Seyffardt was a Dutch general who commanded a Waffen-SS unit of volunteers on the eastern front before he was assassinated by resistance fighters in 1943.” (05/11/26)
- Are We all Libertarian-Adjacent Now?
Source: Chris’s Substack
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra“[O]ne implication of [Matt] Zwolinski’s work is that there is no single, coherent libertarian project to speak of, that libertarianism is a Big Tent, which includes many, sometimes conflicting projects offering substantially different interpretations of the world and starkly different proposals on how to identify and resolve the social problems they encounter. How adjacent these proposals are to libertarianism is a key issue here because when the definition or even description of a term becomes so fluid that it encompasses virtually everything, it ultimately signifies nothing. This isn’t about asking those in libertarian and adjacent spaces to hand in their club cards. It’s a question of how ‘adjacency’ can morph into ideological complicity and outright support for the very power structures that most libertarians have sought to dismantle.” (05/11/26)
https://chrismatthewsciabarra.substack.com/p/are-we-all-libertarian-adjacent-now
- An Ode to Low-Skilled Workers
Source: Bet On It
by Bryan Caplan“Social Desirability Bias aside, ‘Low-skilled workers are terrible’ is absolute lunacy. Most obviously, we’d starve without low-skilled workers, because they grow almost all of our food. The vast majority of construction and infrastructure workers lack college degrees, and without them, we’d be living in tents. If we’re lucky, because tents are made by low-skilled workers, too. … if the economy had to lose either Jeff Bezos or his driver, we’d be better off with Bezos. But the economy is, fortunately, not a Trolley Problem. We almost never choose between Bezos and his driver, or between any high-skilled worker and any low-skilled worker.” (05/11/26)
https://www.betonit.ai/p/an-ode-to-low-skilled-workers-version
- Trump’s “Unacceptable” Answer
Source: Eunomia
by Daniel Larison“The president curtly rejected another Iranian proposal yesterday: ‘President Trump on Sunday rejected the latest offer from Iran to end the war with the United States, declaring that it was ‘TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.” As many observers now acknowledge, the U.S. has lost the war. Trump cannot bring himself to accept that he is responsible for that defeat. He appears to have believed that he could win a great victory over Iran in a matter of days, and he can’t cope with the reality of his monumental failure. … the U.S. should jump at the chance to extricate itself from the mess it has created before the damage to the global economy gets far worse. It may not exactly be a return to the status quo ante, but that option isn’t available. This is probably as good of an offer as the U.S. is likely to get.” (05/11/26)
https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/trumps-unacceptable-answer
- The Problem with Liberal Empire
Source: Law & Liberty
by Christopher Coyne“If Enlightenment thinkers and Hayek are correct, then the government’s projection of power intended to achieve order will crowd out and potentially destroy emergent orders. In this case, what are presumed to be the means of bringing about order are actually a source of disorder. In addition, the association of order with top-down state control creates a false sense of overconfidence in technocratic solutions, encouraging more, rather than less, government intervention. Failures are not viewed as issues with the abuse of human reason, but rather as failures to plan well enough. … Liberal empires do not stay liberal.” (05/11/26)
https://lawliberty.org/book-review/the-problem-with-liberal-empire/
- Why Does America Keep Testing Failed “Decapitation” Strategies?
Source: Libertarian Institute
by José Niño“The United States has long operated under a seductive strategic fantasy. Remove the leader of an adversary organization, whether a drug cartel, a terrorist group, or a sovereign state, and that organization will collapse, enabling American interests to fill the resulting vacuum. However, decades of academic literature, hard empirical data from Mexico’s drug war, and the lived consequences of America’s post 9/11 targeted killing campaigns all tell a damning story many in the DC ruling class refuse to acknowledge. Decapitation strategies are, at best, tactically satisfying and strategically hollow. At worst, they escalate violence, radicalize successors, and produce precisely the instability they were designed to prevent. The ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran represents the most ambitious test of this doctrine in history. The results so far are deeply troubling.” (05/11/26)
- The Revolution in Direct Democracy in America
Source: Town Hall
by Barry Poulson“The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees citizens the right to petition their government. Petitioning government is part of our DNA. We benefited from British institutions of direct democracy that can be traced back to the Magna Carta. In the New England colonies direct democracy was the foundation for government, citizens could petition their government in town meetings and annual election ballots. At the national level, petitioning Congress peaked in the 19th century but has declined since then. In the 19th century disenfranchised citizens, including women before suffrage, free blacks, and indigenous peoples were able to petition the federal government to address issues and enact reforms that Congress was unwilling to initiate. The decline in direct democracy over the past century is due to several factors.” (05/11/26)
- Europe Shrugs Off Trump’s Latest Threats
Source: Foreign Policy
by Rachel Rizzo“When U.S. President Donald Trump reentered office last year, European leaders felt that familiar sense of dread. And indeed, Trump launched back into his first-term habit of harping on Europe for everything from defense spending to trade imbalances. Vice President J.D. Vance turned the knife even deeper with a speech at the 2025 Munich Security Conference, blaming Europe for its own demise for things such as government impingement upon free speech and uncontrolled immigration. European leaders, for their part, initially responded to these provocations with a familiar mix of panic, unease, and warnings that the trans-Atlantic relationship was doomed. But Trump’s latest threats against European countries — in response to their refusal to go all in on Washington’s war with Iran — don’t seem to be eliciting the same response from the continent as before.” (05/11/26)
- Quantum Vibe, 05/11/26
Source: Big Head Press
by Scott BieserCartoon. (05/11/26)
- How Closing the Strait of Hormuz Has Sparked a Wider Energy Debate in Europe
Source: The Nation
by Stanley Reed“For the second time in less than five years, a politically driven energy crunch is buffeting Europe, leading to soul-searching about how to avoid these damaging episodes in the future. In 2022, Russia, while invading Ukraine, slashed natural gas supplies to some European countries …. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for oil and natural gas shipments from the Persian Gulf region, means that Europeans face the threat of disruption of energy supplies, including aviation fuel, and a rise in prices that were already high. … For some European politicians and clean energy executives, the lessons from these shocks are clear. Europe, they say, must accelerate already robust efforts to shift to clean energy technologies like wind and solar power not only to mitigate climate change but, increasingly, to avoid blackmail and preserve independence.” (05/11/26)
- Government backfires
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“The UK government’s imposition of VAT on schools will raise less money than they calculated, and might well cost them money. Private schools now charge VAT at 20% on fees, and the government collects that revenue. On paper, this looks like a straightforward tax windfall. But several offsetting effects erode or potentially reverse the gain. Families who can no longer afford fees pushed up by 20% are withdrawing their children and placing them in state schools, which the government must fund. Estimates run as high as one in ten leaving private education. Each additional state school pupil costs roughly £7,000-£8,000 per year. If enough pupils switch, this spending can outweigh VAT receipts. Private schools, now VAT-registered, can reclaim VAT on their own purchases such as building work, supplies, etc., something they couldn’t do before. This reduces the net VAT take.” (05/11/26)
- Trumpland Is a Man’s World: Now You See Them… Now You Don’t
Source: TomDispatch
by Karen Greenberg“It’s been a tough couple of months for women officials in Washington — or, more accurately, in Trumpland. In early March (Women’s History Month, by the way), in a Truth Social post, the president fired Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, the second woman ever to hold that title. Weeks later, also in a social media post, he fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, the third woman ever to serve as head of the Department of Justice. While in the first year of his first presidency, Trump 1.0 had fired numerous officials, this time around, Bondi and Noem, who ran the two largest law enforcement agencies in the country, were the first cabinet officials to be dismissed. Both — no surprise — were replaced by men. And just as I was writing this piece, Trump removed another female cabinet official, Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer.” (05/10/26)
- Don’t Waste Time Arguing Over the Surgeon General Nominee. Abolish the Office.
Source: Reason
by JD Tuccille“President Donald Trump’s most recent pick for the office of U.S. Surgeon General, Nicole Saphier, is a source of tension between the MAGA and MAHA factions of his supporters. Given that she’s the president’s third pick for the slot, the administration would undoubtedly just like to put disputes over this one office behind them. But there’s an easy path to a conflict-free resolution: The Trump administration could leave the Office of the Surgeon General unfilled and push for its abolition. … the Surgeon General doesn’t really have a clearly defined role or a good reason to parade around in a quasi-naval uniform. That is, unless you like the office’s transformation into a national nag that lectures Americans on whatever alleged lifestyle sins most annoy the current Surgeon General.” (05/11/26)
- However you feel about their creator, TrumpIRAs are sorely needed
Source: Los Angeles Times
by Teresa Ghilarducci“As a progressive economist, I wrote a paper in 2021 with a generally conservative colleague, Kevin Hassett, who now directs the National Economic Council in the Trump White House. We agreed then on the basic arithmetic of the American retirement crisis. We still do. That’s why people like him and people like me can all say: Trump’s executive order establishing TrumpIRAs, signed last month, is simply the right move for American workers.” (05/11/26)
- As Israel’s Hasbara Budget Soars, Netanyahu Stresses Need For More Propaganda
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“In a fawning softball 60 Minutes interview released Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu stressed the importance of winning ‘the propaganda war’ on social media. This comes as Israel moves to quadruple its propaganda budget to $730 million a year. Major Garrett (which apparently is a real name belonging to a real guy who works for 60 Minutes) told the CBS audience that ‘Netanyahu attributes the reputational harm to Israel almost entirely to social media, which he calls the eighth front of the war.’ ‘This is yours, right?’ asked Netanyahu, picking up Garrett’s phone. ‘You’re not immune either. Because you can penetrate this machine, you can penetrate this little instrument, and you can say about Major Garrett anything you want. And I can paint you as a monster. And if I say it often enough, enough people will believe it.'” (05/11/26)
- Iran Has Nuclear Energy, Not Nuclear Weapons
Source: Antiwar.com
by Chris Ernesto“According to the White House website, Trump warned Iran against having nuclear weapons on 74 occasions prior to the war. Since the war began on February 28, 2026, Trump has discussed Iranian nuclear issues in at least 20 documented public appearances, based on the Senate Democrats’ Trump transcript archive and Roll Call’s Factbase transcript database. … But Trump’s claims are not supported by the record. In fact, official statements from U.S. intelligence, the State Department, the IAEA, and others state that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon, is not currently building one, and does not seek to build one.” (05/11/26)
https://original.antiwar.com/chris_ernesto/2026/05/10/iran-has-nuclear-energy-not-nuclear-weapons/
- If Trump wants out of war he needs to stand up to Israel on Lebanon
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Paul R Pillar“Tel Aviv has controlled the talks from the beginning and as a result Hezbollah is stronger. Time for Washington to learn from history and take the reins.” (05/11/26)
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/lebanon-talks-trump-israel/
- The Hantavirus Panic Machine: When Rare Diseases Become Media Theater
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Joseph Varon“A disease responsible for approximately one thousand confirmed cases over three decades in a population exceeding 330 million does not constitute an existential societal threat. It is neither comparable to Covid-19 nor does it justify widespread public alarm. However, contemporary media systems are structurally ill-equipped to present rare infectious diseases in proportionate terms. Fear increases engagement, which in turn drives revenue, and dramatic narratives consistently overshadow measured epidemiological analysis. … A disease can be both dangerous and exceedingly uncommon. Contemporary public discourse frequently fails to differentiate between these two concepts. This distinction matters because exaggerated risk perception carries consequences of its own.” (05/11/26)
- Angry Left plots to purge Virginia’s high court
Source: Fox News
by Jonathan Turley“After the Virginia Supreme Court rejected the results of the recent Democratic effort to effectively wipe out Republican representation in the state, Democratic pundits and activists have latched onto a proposal by Michigan State law professor Quinn Yeargain to gut the court by forcing the retirement of the current justices, appointing liberal activists, and then reversing the opinion. It is extremely telling that some are pushing the raw muscle play to retake power in Washington, particularly in light of the calls to pack the United States Supreme Court once the party is back in control. … Under this plan, Virginia Democrats would adopt an absurdly low age for retirement in a gut-and-pack scheme: Yeargain suggested that they could set ‘the mandatory retirement of justices and judges after they reach a prescribed age, beyond which they shall not serve, regardless of the term to which elected or appointed.'” (05/10/26)
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/jonathan-turley-angry-left-plots-purge-virginias-
- The Viciousness of the Twin Evils on Iran
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“The common assumption is because the Iranian regime is engaged in evil, that makes the U.S. government’s war on Iran something good. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here we have a classic case of evil versus evil. That’s what all too many Americans still can’t come to grips with — that their very own government is engaged in evil while combatting the evil actions of the Iranian regime. Twin evils — that’s what we have here.” (05/11/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/05/11/the-viciousness-of-the-twin-evils-on-iran/
- Protectionism Won’t Feed North America: Don’t Scrap the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement
Source: The Daily Economy
by Larry Martin“Calls to weaken or abandon USMCA overlook how interconnected US, Canadian, and Mexican agriculture has become. Trade barriers hurt farmers and families in all three nations.” (05/11/26)
- A Polar Plan for Banking
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Alex Rosado“The word Antarctica brings to mind images of desolation and glaciers, and may even give you goosebumps when thinking of its subzero temperatures. For one American company, the emptiness was an opportunity to bring banking and convenience to a continent once thought to be a buffer to the free market. In 1998, Wells Fargo installed two ATMs at McMurdo Station in Antarctica, an American-run base dedicated to land surveillance, climate research, and the natural sciences. The Station’s population fluctuates between 250 and 1,100 people, depending on the season. With no cities on the continent, the absence of permanent residents makes Antarctic economics a low-growth environment. At face level, having any economic service here sounds like a poor investment. However, the potential in the South Pole’s ATMs doesn’t lie in profit. It arises from observing how little is actually required to sustain a functioning community.” (05/11/26)
- Living Under the Weight of Keynes’s Shadow Wealth
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Matt Hisrich“While reading The Wealth of Shadows — Graham Moore’s excellent historical novel about pre-World War II global finance — I couldn’t help but feel a growing sense of unease regarding the current state of international economics. Set just before the United States enters World War II, the book follows the adventures of a plucky group of Treasury Department employees unofficially working to undermine the German economy while officially maintaining the US position of neutrality. Two figures outside of the US loom large in the narrative — Hjalmar Schacht in Germany and John Maynard Keynes in England. … part of the mystery in Wealth of Shadows is how governments can circumvent the price inflation that comes from excess printing — to have their cake and eat it, too, so to speak.” (05/11/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/living-under-weight-keyness-shadow-wealth
- Reason Roundtable, 05/11/26
- Rising, 05/11/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on a lawsuit filed against The New York Times, accusing the paper of discriminating against a white male employee.” (05/11/26)
- Free Speech Future, episode 3
Source: Expression
“What the history of tech censorship — from video games to social media — can teach us about our current moment. What worked, what didn’t, and where we go from here.” (05/11/26)
https://expression.fire.org/p/free-speech-future-episode-iii-cycles
- Neon Liberalism, episode 73
Source: Liberal Currents
“Samantha is joined by Elizabeth Wilkins, president of the Roosevelt Institute, to discuss the economic debate that’s roiling the Democratic Party–whether to lean in to Republican slopulism about tax cuts, or to embrace broad social programs funded by a broad tax base.” (05/11/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 05/11/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Trump Going Back To Failed ‘Project Freedom?'” (05/11/26)
- Decoder with Nilay Patel
Source: The Verge
“Joanna Stern is not a robot, but she lived with them.” (05/11/26)
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 447
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Amanda Griffiths is a founder of LP Alliance. We discuss her time at a large libertarian think tank where some of the staff were totally okay with coronavirus nonsense. She is running for vice-chair of the Libertarian National Committee (USA).” (05/11/26)
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 05/11/26
Source: The New Republic
“Trump Blurts Out Vile Plot to Steal Midterms as Polls Take Brutal Turn.” (05/11/26)
https://newrepublic.com/article/210212/trump-blurts-vile-plot-steal-midterms-crushing-new-poll-hits
- EconTalk, 05/11/26
Source: EconTalk
“Thinking Inside the Box (with David Epstein).” (05/11/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/thinking-inside-the-box-with-david-epstein/